I love getting the chance to encourage people. I think that it is brilliant when you see other Christians encouraging each other, especially from different nations. Nigel Pollock from TSCF New Zealand taught me a great motto years ago: encourage the good wherever you find it. It is so much easier to knock stuff you don't like than to encourage the good. Ros wrote this motto on the front of my leather filofax just after we got married. In Tipex. Just so I would never forget.
In the last post I wrote how brilliant it was to see Turkish-Italians discipling and encouraging a North African (Priscilla, Aquila and Apollos). That's just real gospel at work. I WANT it, in my church and every church all the time. And I have just had an opportunity here in Austria to do it.
A man from the Czech Republic and another from Latvia asked "you teach a lot about glory and giving God glory, please tell us a bit more about how we can do that." What a great question! If you could say one thing only in answer to the question, what would it be?
The one thing I had time to say was "enjoy Jesus, enjoy grace, enjoy being his child, enjoy your Father's love, worship him and decide that your life and death are all about Jesus splendour being seen in your life." John Piper is SO right to say that the Shorter Westminster Catechism should read "the chief end of Man is to glorify God BY enjoying him forever." God cannot be glorified by being served because He doesn't need anything. He is sufficient and free and not at all needy. God is glorified by his people loving being with Him and delighting in who he is for them.
David said "One thing I will ask, this is what I seek, to dwell in God's house all the days of my life, to gaze on his beauty and to seek him in his temple." That is glorifying God - living with him, gazing with wonder at his magnificence and seeking him. Prize him and pursue him with all your heart today.
And encourage the good wherever you find it.